Hi everyone,
My ex and i have been separated coming up 8 years now. He's always made token payments for our 3 children, and when he got a better job 3ish years increased his payments to £200.00 a month. I received a letter from the CMS after a review of our case and they stated he should have been paying a fair bit more than twice that much going by his income and i could apply for arrears if i wanted. I chose not to, because i didn't want to rock the boat with my ex, preferring him to have a relationship with his kids despite my struggles. He very begrudgingly raised the amount a little bit but nowhere near the amount he should be paying. He's since then taken on a different shift pattern and sees the kids around once a month for one night, and has them for a weekend approx every 6 weeks. He says that these factors where he provides things for them his end should be taken into account and that he doesnt owe me what they are saying.
This year i have received another letter saying that his income is higher than last year and the amount he should pay has been raised again, however he keeps insisting that he cannot afford to pay any more. I have asked him to re-read the letter, and consider things from my point of view and get back to me. He's responded that he would be unable to pay his rent and get to work if he paid me the amount stated, which according to the income detailed in the letter is about half a weeks wage.
He lives with his partner, they both work and have no children to take care of their end.
I don't have much money of my own, my partner and i are building up our own business and we have one child together. I feel my partner puts so much into raising my older three when their own dad puts in the bare minimum and it is unfair.
I've given my ex one more opportunity to look at things again and stated that i wish he would look at it realistically as i don't wish to involve the cms any further. They would take whatever he is due to pay and the possibly the arrears from not paying the full amount for the past few years on top of the collection fees they now charge. I've no desire to bankrupt my ex so i've tried so hard to be fair, i really want to maintain a good relationship with him for the kids sake but i feel something has to give here.
Does anyone know what sort of effect cms payments have on the paying parent? Would it really leave them out of pocket? I know that they calculate the amount before tax deducted so i've always accepted less from him to account for this, but is this fair on me and the kids? Would i be being unreasonable to just let the CMS have at it?
Thank you if you've read this far x